Like this:

My book, Mantramala, is now stocked at Celeste in addition to Kitab Khana and Strand bookstall, all three in Mumbai. Celeste is also beginning online sales so you can order a copy anywhere in India from the store.

Like this:

The first edition of Mantramala is almost sold out. The last few copies should be arriving in Mumbai, coming to Kitab Khana at Fort, or Strand Bookstall.

I keep getting mail asking where to buy it from. I know its been hard to get but it is not in my hands. Publishers decide these things. I have to keep explaining that I don’t have copies. I got a few copies when it was published and managed to hold onto one for my own reference. After that, if I want a copy I have to buy it.

As of now, I don’t know what will happen when the last copies sell out. Publishing is a business in such a big crisis right now – who knows.

I certainly hope it will be available again soon. In the meantime, if you want the book, pick it up now.

Like this:

Books get published and books get lost amid the thousands which are printed every year. Too many titles and too little shelf space. When my book was first published I rarely saw it on the shelves. Bookshops did not reorder. Some did not even take orders.

Like many books it was invisible, the book I had taken five years to research and write and almost as much to get published. Once in print it just disappeared. Sales were good. One or two bookshops – especially Strand – stocked it and sold it and re-ordered it often. So, if it was selling, where was it?

Three years after publication I found out. Here, in the very first table of Kitab Khana, a friendly and cheerful Mumbai bookshop. Here it is, right at the entrance, on that important first table.

I wanted to see this – I guess every author does – and now I have.

Once a book leaves home for a publisher its like a bird taking flight – you have no idea where it will land – or crash – or go into oblivion. Or sometimes, reappear.

Just goes to show that everything takes its time and every dog has its day.

This one was a really delightful day, and in some sense came full circle, since I am planning to begin another book next week.

Mantras for a Happy Family Life.
61. Mantras for marriage.
62. A Happy married life.
63. When you want a child.
64. For the welfare of children.
65. For love, romance and great sex.
66. For a happy family.

Mantras for wealth and business.
67. Mantras for wealth.
68. Two mantras for good business.
69. Two mantras for sudden gain.
70. To end debts.
71. To remove obstacles.
72. Two mantras for Karya siddhi, success in work.
73. For victory.
74. Prestige, status, high position.

When you publish your first book you feel you have climbed a mountain. You know of course, that you will not see it on those very expensive, very coveted front shelves of bookshops, but you do expect to see it somewhere. Peeping out at you shyly from the overstocked shelves, perhaps, or better still, lying on the counter while the cashier makes the bill.

The truth is that you never see it at all. Once published it becomes invisible.

The commonest question you get asked is, ‘where can I get your book?’ It’s a very valid question, because, no, every bookshop does not stock it. Some do. Some always say it’s sold out but make no effort to order more. Others will tell you, ‘there is one copy in the computer but it’s not on the shelves.’

Oddly enough, one bookshop told me that they did not have my book and I found a copy lying in the fiction section. Either they did not know what they had or they had not bothered to check.

It’s a very mysterious almost magical process. I know my book is selling steadily. I know which bookshops are selling it and re-ordering it. But if I go to one of them I neither see my book come in nor go out. Perhaps there’s some alternative reality in which it hides.

I don’t know what it is but this one thing I know – a publishing law with very few exceptions – here it is in all its starkness –